The southern region, including Karnataka, will be integrated with a full-fledged national power grid by January 2014, according to Union Power Minister M. Veerappa Moily.
Addressing a programme after inaugurating a grid-connected roof-top solar plant at the BMRDA building in Bangalore taken up with the help of the contribution from Rajya Sabha member B. Jayashree made from her MP’s Local Area Development Scheme, Mr. Moily said such an integration would help easy transmission of power from one region to another.
This is expected to give impetus to grid-connected solar power generation also, he noted.
Pointing out that fossil fuels were fast depleting, the Minister said renewable energy was the only hope for the energy sector in the coming years.
He said the country had set a target of setting up solar power plants with a total capacity of 20,000 MW through the Jawaharlal Nehru Solar Mission.
He called upon Karnataka to increase its solar energy generation in a bid to move up from the present third position to second in the country in terms of the extent of tapping solar power.
Energy Minister Shobha Karandlaje said the government was planning to make it mandatory for all pumps which were being used to lift groundwater from a depth of not more than 250 feet to switch over to solar power.
Ms. Jayashree said she had decided to use her MPLAD funds for setting up a solar power plant as renewable energy was the need of the hour.
The solar energy system that has been installed atop the BMRDA building has a 4.6 kilowatt grid-connected plant and 3 kilowatt of non-grid connected plant that has a battery for storage.
